


Seeds of Discord Part 31

by kbj1123



Series: Wonder Woman & Captain America [32]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Crossover Pairings, F/M, One True Pairing, Sexual Content, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3454316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbj1123/pseuds/kbj1123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone or something is causing violent riots to erupt all over the U.S., and whatever it is, it wreaks havoc with both Wonder Woman's health and Bruce Banner's ability to keep his rage in check.</p><p>An unpleasant surprise awaits the super-couple as they make their way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds of Discord Part 31

The walk home from dinner is very quiet, and not just because of the freezing temperatures. Diana steps over a slush puddle that is beginning to re-freeze. Steve follows, and she links her arm around his. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Oh, nothing really,” he tells her. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am.” Diana squeezes his arm and smiles. Steve smiles back. “Well about you too. But really I was thinking that it’s good that my super-enhanced DNA makes me highly resistant to stuff like curry. I think otherwise I’d have lost the lining of my entire digestive system.” “We didn’t have to go there,” she replies. “I could have gone some other time on my own or with a friend who likes some flavor in their food.” He laughs and says, “You tasted flavor behind all that heat?” She leans her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for at least trying, my dearest.” 

They take their time walking. Diana wills herself to try and forget the events of the day, just for a little while. Just for these few blocks, she pretends she didn’t meet Bruce for yoga this morning; he didn’t confess having feelings for her; he didn’t kiss her. For the fifteen-minute stroll home in the bitter cold, she gives herself permission to walk in comfortable silence with her husband after a normal day of work. They pass the news store, the used bookstore where Steve and she spend many pleasant hours, and a bus stop full of bundled-up commuters making their own way home from their day of work. It is just past six and already mostly dark. She offers a silent prayer for Persephone’s safe and timely return to Earth, thus ensuring Demeter’s happiness and spring’s return. 

A few blocks from their own building though, they hear screams. Steve runs ahead; Diana ducks into the corner grocery and into their public restroom. She runs out the emergency exit as Wonder Woman and catches up with Steve. Chaos flows out from the alley three blocks from their building. She races through the slushy trash spilling out toward the sidewalk and the street. It’s easy to find Steve; he’s slowly making his way toward the cause of the violence: The Hulk is tearing the entire alley apart. “Steve, go get your uniform. I’ll handle things for a couple of minutes.” He nods and sprints toward their home. Diana looks around for bystanders. Thankfully, there aren’t many yet, and usually most of the homeless men who congregate here are the soup kitchen by now. Most of them. Two men, whom she knows as Thomas and Skip, cower in the far end. The Hulk has a cinderblock in each hand and is preparing to throw it towards them. 

“BRUCE!” she screams. “ENOUGH!” He hurls the blocks at the two men, hitting Skip, who immediately crumbles in an unconscious, bloody heap. Then he turns toward Diana and snarls. She grabs her lasso and unfurls it toward The Hulk. He swats it aside before she can catch him. She grabs it back and prepares to try again, but he lurches toward her. He reaches for her with both hands and she handsprings backward, just out of his grasp. The ground is icy and slimy. “Bruce, you don’t have to do this,” she says. He picks up a broken glass bottle and hurls it at her. She ducks and it flies out toward a gathering of onlookers just outside the alley. She hears police sirens. “There are innocent people here Bruce, and someone is hurt,” she tries again. “Let me help you…” she is silenced by an old car bumper that thwacks into her solar plexus. She easily regains her breath, picks up the bumper, and takes an attack stance with it. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she tells him. 

Behind her, she hears Steve begin to herd onlookers to a safe distance. When the Hulk recognizes Steve’s voice, he roars angrily and begins to charge the crowd and at Steve. People scream and scatter. The Hulk plows past Diana, knocking her backward. He advances on Steve, who pushes him back a couple of feet with his shield. “Hey buddy, we can try to resolve things, but not when either of us is mad,” he tries. The Hulk charges him again and Steve pushes back again. 

While Steve works toward wearing down Bruce, Diana runs to the end of the alley to check on the two men. Thomas kneels in the filthy snow, cradling his companion’s head. Diana checks Skip’s pulse, which is thready. “Keep his head up like this,” she shows Thomas. “That’s right.” She pulls her SHIELD communicator out from her belt and contacts paramedics. Really, it is meant for Avenger emergencies, but she is an Avenger, and this is an emergency as far as she’s concerned. She gets a safe distance from the men and whistles to the Hulk. “Over here!” The Hulk slams Steve into a wall and heads for Diana again. Diana takes a flying kick to The Hulk’s head, making him fall onto his back. He howls in frustrated rage. Steve peels himself from the ground. He takes advantage of The Hulk’s prone position and leaps to attack, straddling him and punching him in the face. Steve stuns him enough so that Diana has time to lasso him. When he’s secured, she puts her hand on his face and finds in her mind an image of tranquility. Within five minutes, SHIELD paramedics and agents and District police are on the scene, and Bruce Banner lies on the ground, lassoed and unconscious.

Diana is in no mood for a debriefing or a news interview. What she really wants is to go home and wash off the literal and emotional filth she’s feeling right now. She watches as Thomas runs alongside the stretcher that carries his friend. Diana stops the paramedics and tells them, “This man is the patient’s family. He needs to stay with him…and please see that he gets a shower and clean clothes and a meal.” The paramedics smile and nod and promise that both men will be well-seen-to. Sometimes, being the embodiment of Aphrodite, with almost all of her gifts, is extremely useful. Steve handles reporters as Diana does her best to convince the SHIELD agents that the debriefing can wait until tomorrow. Then she joins Steve. She tells reporters that she is off to go get Diana out of hiding. “Uh, yeah,” Steve says. “I sent Diana to go call the Avengers,” Diana adds, “And I made her promise to stay where she was until someone from SHIELD came to get her. So um, that’s what I’m going to do now.” She runs off before anyone can push her for details. 

At home, Diana sits against the wall in the shower and lets the hot water rain over her. Steam fills the room, and Steve nearly steps on her when he comes in to join her. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says. He sits next to her and lets her bury her head into his chest. “This is my fault,” she tells him. “I should have looked for him today. I should have made him talk to me.” 

“Nope,” he replies. “Not your fault, nothing you could have done. Bruce knows how to bring himself down before he gets like that. He can tell when it’s coming. This is all on him.” She shakes her head ‘no.’ “He’s our friend. I let him down. If I’d talked to him he might not have gotten this angry in the first place.” Steve takes her head in his hands so he can look at her directly. “He’s a grown man and he has to own his behaviors and their consequences. If Skip dies, that’s on him. Whatever consequences come of this, it’s all on him.” 

He stands and then helps her up. Droplets bounce off of his body, sending up mists of colored prisms. He steers her around to face the shower wall. She rests her palms and cheek against the wet tile and lets him move her wet hair over her shoulders, and then massage bath oil over her back. The musky flower scent winds its way into her lungs as Steve’s hands press into her; the knots along her spine begin to unwind. It hasn’t been a good day, but it’s had its moments of beauty. She thinks about Steve’s mild dinner of tandoori chicken and rice, and of how amusingly pink his face got when he tasted a bit of her curry. She’d warned him it was spicy. He works his hands down her legs. She thinks about kissing him in the cactus alcove this morning, and how even in his anger at Bruce, he’d turned back to her because she needed him. He kneels behind her and rubs oil into the hollow space behind each knee, then the tops of her feet and each toe, and back up her shins and calves, one leg at a time. She feels like she might slide back to the floor along with all the thoughts and images that puddle past her feet and swirl down the drain. All that is left are Steve’s slightly calloused hands on her skin, digging into her muscles. They move up her thighs. She looks down and watches as he flattens his palm to make slow, firm circles over and over her belly, abdomen, between her breasts and around each one. The tile against her cheek, palms and forearms is cool in contrast to everywhere her husband’s hands have been. She lingers there, letting him kiss the nape of her neck. 

This moment is beautiful; the water-reflected light raining down on them is beautiful. She reaches up for Steve’s soap, whose scent reminds her of summertime, and then turns around, steps behind him, and washes him back. She pushes her fingers deep into his shoulders and along the sides of his neck and he exhales quietly. She thinks about the afternoon’s swordplay with him and Thor. She traces the outlines of Steve’s muscles and vertebrae as she presses her soapy hands into him. He rarely lets her do this. He usually insists on giving rather than receiving comfort. It is their biggest ongoing argument. She moves her hands back up his left arm, kneading his wrist and forearm, softly treading the pads of her fingers along his veins. All she feels is gratitude for this moment, and the visceral sensation of his body releasing under her hands. She takes her time and watches the water pool down his bicep into the crook of his arm. She works her way up to his shoulder and switches arms. Touching her husband like this, while the artificial humidity and summer scents envelop them, makes her forget everything about this day for a few moments at a time. She moves in front of him and he leans against the wall. She stands on her toes and kisses him. His mouth tastes clean and warm. “I love you,” she tells him. She doesn’t know why it makes her begin to cry when she tells him this. He kisses her back and says he loves her too. She re-lathers her hands quickly and starts to work soap into his chest and torso. When she washes his sex, he is automatically aroused but he gently discourages her from spending time there. Yes, there were achingly beautiful moments today. Even those few, torturously honest moments with Bruce this morning had their own kind of beauty to them because they were so truthful. She just wishes the truth were different. She remembers Skip and Thomas and the other men yesterday, and giving them sandwiches and clean blankets while they were waiting for the soup kitchen to re-open. “Oh, Bruce,” she thinks, “what have we all done?”

She massages shampoo into Steve’s scalp and notices the small bald patch is starting to fill in already. There is certainly beauty in this moment also: not just the fact of his physical loveliness, but the deeper beauty of the comfort they bring to each other. Sometimes they don’t even have to talk, and a sense of peace arises just by being near one another, like now. He rinses his head and then leans into his wet nakedness, resting her head on his chest again. He pulls her close, smooths her hair down her back, and kisses the top of her head. “We’ll go by the shelter in the morning and let everyone know what happened, and then we’ll go by the infirmary and check on everyone,” he assures her.

That night, neither of them wants to talk about it. There isn’t much to say anyway; it’s all too fresh. They watch a movie, just to escape. Steve chooses one that Tony had given him as a kind of joke, some sort of commentary on what he’d originally seen as Steve’s ethical stance. “We could do that,” Diana says. 

Steve pauses the movie and looks over at her. “Which part? Move to the North Pole? Stop missiles with our bare hands? Or fly so fast we reverse the Earth’s spin?” He snatches the popcorn from between her fingers before she gets it to her mouth. 

“Hey!” She laughs, though. “I mean we could patrol the city and save people from everyday crime, instead of just the big stuff. It might be a nice change.” 

He shakes his head, amused. “You and I have very different ideas of what “nice” means, sometimes. Besides, Wonder Woman and Cap aren’t busy enough already?” He leans in and kisses her. They forget the movie. Outside somewhere is a bird, a plane.


End file.
